


The Eye of the Storm

by Phillidore



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: F/M, John Watson In Love, Sally Donovan gets a friend, starting mid season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phillidore/pseuds/Phillidore
Summary: Ellie Norton liked finding the special in the ordinary.She loved gossip, helping people - dead and alive alike.She liked being the person in the background that kept everything steady.She liked the coziness of woolen jumpers and a nice cuppa tea.But Dr. John Watson fascinated her and she entranced him.
Relationships: John Watson/Original Female Character(s), Sally Donovan & Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Ellie had been working at New Scotland Yard for a few rather uneventful months now.   
She didn’t care much about that though. She liked finding the special in the ordinary.   
And the very best way of doing that was through watching people.   
As she was basically a gloryfied secretary, she didn’t have much work to take care of anyway.   
Her collegues would definitely disagree on that with her though, but she liked being efficient.   
That way she had more chances to watch. Not in a creepy way. She’d just observe people, she wouldn’t follow them.   
She liked gossip and she liked seeing how people interacted when they thought nobody could see them.   
Simply because it showed her that there was more affection than a pessimist like her would expect and it also cheered her up somewhat to see those polished hot shots struggle from time to time.   
She didn’t want to be one of them.   
Never had wanted that, actually.   
She could have done the whole career thing, but she just didn’t feel it would suit her very much.   
She had gone to university and finished it in record time.   
And now in her mid twenties she found a job she enjoyed that actually payed enough to live in London in a flatshare with only one other person.   
That person was her brother Mortimer, who was a hot shot lawyer and basically never home.   
Thus, Ellie really could have done worse.

Today was a slow day. It was a Wednesday. It was raining.   
But there wasn’t anything special about today – yet.   
Ellie usually worked with the departments that took care of smaller offenses, like theft or petty crimes.   
This week though she was helping out upstairs in homicide, as there had been a lot going on in the department of violent crimes.   
As Ellie was making a new pot of coffee, she saw Sally Donovan coming around the corner looking quite annoyed. 

“Morning Sally” Ellie smiled. “Morning, it’s Ellie, right?” she nodded in confirmation. 

“The coffee’s fresh, just made it.” 

Sally thanked her, poured herself a cup and sighed. 

Ellie looked at her more closely now. “Boy trouble?” 

Sally looked up from her coffee now, eyes opened widely. “Yes, how’d you know?” Ellie smiled and poured herself a cup of tea as the water had finally boiled.

“Just a good guess. You know, if you need to talk to someone. I don’t judge.” 

As Ellie didn’t expect an answer, she took out the tea bag, poured a bit of milk into the cup and turned to leave the kitchen.   
She nearly poured the tea over her hand as Sally suddenly spoke: “I’d like that actually”. 

Now it was for Ellie to look surprised, but she took the hint and came back into the kitchen and closed the door behind her.   
People were far too nosy for their own good, she knew that because more often than not, she was people.   
Donovan sighed again.

“You know Anderson?” Ellie thought for a moment then nodding slowly “the guy from forensics, right?” 

Sally nodded in agreement and continued “He and I had a thing going on, and it was nice in a way. No strings and so on. You know?” 

Ellie agreed with an understanding “Yeah” and then looked at the Seargent “So what happened? Too much attachement? Did the wife find out? Or something completely different?” 

Sally looked at her surprisedly again but didn’t ask.

Instead she answered “Nah nothing like that, luckily. But he’s a complicated guy and sometimes just plain annoying with his grudges.” she sipped at her coffee, sighed and added “and the fact that he has a wife, doesn’t help either. Though I don’t know how she’s not kicked him out yet, to be honest.” they looked at eachother and as they saw they each were already smiling, they both started laughing at the thought of Anderson’s wife quite literally kicking him out. 

As Ellie knew the man – and she did not know him very well – he would most certainly make quite the fuss and be extremely dramatic, should his wife really kick him out. 

As they were still somewhat giggling, they now caught eachother up on the newest news and even some gossip. 

Apparently Jones – a constable that was rather new in the homicide depatment – had almost puked on the first body he’d seen and had only through luck managed to empty his stomach into an offered paper bag from one of the forensic assistants. 

Also, Stewart and Patel – an assistant in forensics and another constable, both female – had been seeing eachother for a few weeks now and were constantly toeing around the matter. Everyone in the department was just waiting for it to blow up or them to be caught in a broom closet. 

As they were chatting away, Ellie couldn’t really understand that everyone always said that Sally was apparently stuck up and frigid, she really wasn’t.   
But then again, ‘everyone’ was male around here and they would say something like that about a woman in a position like Sally Donovan’s. 

Suddenly there was a knock on the glass door leading to the kitchen and as they looked Inspector Greg Lestrade was to be seen behind said door, motioning for Sally to join him. Sally quickly rinsed out her now empty coffee cup and yelled a “See ya later” towards Ellie with a grin, who in turn grinned back and gave half a wave, making her way to sort though the reports of the last few cases that had to be filed away now. 

As she was sitting at the desk she sorted through the reports of the last case, which had been one of those that had needed the assistance of the Sherlock Holmes and his colleague Dr. John Watson.   
Ellie had heard of them – naturally – but never actually met either man and never even seen Dr. Watson as of yet.   
And though she didn’t think it all too crazy that someone could observe in such a way that Sherlock Holmes did, she was curious about the duo, as she had heard people talk about Dr. Watson’s blog.   
She really should look into that.   
Hopefully she wouldn’t forget again.


	2. Chapter 2

She was walking down the street, humming a tune that if she remembered it rightly was from the Barbier of Sevilla.   
It wasn’t raining anymore, but the streets were still wet from a day’s worth of rain.   
Ellie adored the way the air smelled after it had rained. It had been a long day and for her a rather uneventful one at that.   
After her talk with Sally that morning she had been sorting through files all day and occasionally made new coffee or had run an errand for one of the higher ranking policemen that were high enough in rank that they were permamently on desk duty now.   
The were usually rather nice.   
So, she really didn’t mind running some errands for them from time to time, as it did get her out of the office and gave her a reason to stretch her legs.   
She now arrived at the house in which the flat that she shared with her brother was situated.   
It was a nice flat, really.   
Mortimer had let her choose most of the furniture and decorations, as he was almost never home anyway.   
So, she had made sure there was dark wood and lots of books and everything was kept in warm colours.   
As it was a safe and comfortable place, she usually was quite eager to get home, but tonight she was almost exstatic about it.   
She was almost running up the stairs, that’s how the exitement seeped through her pores tonight.   
Having reached the second floor, she now entered the flat quickly, through the door closed and grabbed her laptop, before even hanging up her coat – she could do that while the laptop started, so she could immediately gorge herself on information until her head would feel like exploding.   
In passing she put the kettle on, pulled out a pot to make herself some noodles with pesto and almost sprinted back to her laptop as it made a noise that suggested that it was now usable.   
She took it with her towards the kitchen, kicking off her shoes by the door as she made her way through the flat.   
While the noodles started cooking, she started reading Dr. John Watson’s blog.   
She got lost in his storytelling immediately, she had almost let the noodle-water boil over.   
That man could write.  
He was funny, intelligent – maybe not as brilliant as his companion, but certainly above average in intelligence – and charming as far as she could tell by just reading his tales. 

Most people seemed to become curious about the detective when reading these blog entries written by John Watson, but Ellie started wondering as she read.   
How impressive a person would it take to not only live with a man like Sherlock Holmes, but to also see the good in a man like this.   
To not be intimidated, but rather spurned on to become better themself.   
How resillient and impressive, how damaged a man, must he be, this Dr. John Watson?   
How could anyone possibly call him ordinary?  
Ellie felt like Dr. John Watson saw potential in Sherlock Holmes to be a good man and that he himself did not believe himself to be as good as his friend.   
But even though she had yet to meet the man, she already could tell very easily that he must be one of the very best men that she would ever meet.   
And one might call her overconfident for being so sure of actually meeting the man, but they did operate in the same circles – it was only a matter of time until they met, at least in Ellies opinion.   
And with things like that she usually was right.   
She was not a computing kind of person, but she picked up on things rather easily most of the time.   
But as she loved gossip, she usually wasn’t thought to be odd in any way, as she always seemed to know everything and it was known, that if you needed to get intel on someone at work, she was the woman to ask.   
She always knew what to say as well, even though she had no idea how she did that either.   
She spent her night like this.   
Eating pasta, reading Dr. John Watson’s blog and drinking tea until she practically fell asleep reading his first tale for the second time. 

The next morning, she was surprisingly awake, even though it was not even seven o’clock yet and she most certainly was no lark.   
But somehow, she even managed to have some porridge for breakfast, rather than just her cuppa.   
She chose to listen to music this morning and seemed to be in a mood for Brahms’ cello sonatas, so when she entered Scotland Yard that morning, she was focused, motivated and calm, which – though she didn’t know that yet – would improve her day and her work greatly.

She made coffee like always. 

She made herself a cup of tea and took that to her desk, like always. 

She was greeted by the people that greeted her every morning and she started working through the reports that needed to be filed away that morning. 

She couldn’t have been working there longer than half an hour yet – as her tea wasn’t even completely empty yet – when she noticed someone standing in front of her desk. 

Looking up, she noticed it was Inspector Greg Lestrade and behind him stood Sally.   
“Norton, right?” Lestrade asked and she nodded.   
“Donovan tells me, you’re the most organized one around here and have a minor in criminology from uni, that right?” again she nodded adding “I don’t know whether I am the most organized around here, but I like systems and puzzles, y’know, Sir?” 

Lestrade smiled now and Sally was right out grinning “See, Sir, I did tell you she’d be better than Jones.”   
She turned to Ellie now “Also you’ve worked with bodies before, haven’t ya?”   
Ellie nodded again “Yeah, did the documentation and most of the office things for the morgue at Barts, before working here” when Lestrade looked at her questioningly she added “it was the only job that I could do whenever, and I had a pretty annoying flatmate in uni, so I used it to get away most of the time.”   
Lestrade nodded understanding you to also be a person that lived for work in their own way.   
“Good. Well Norton, there’s a body in a Library and it looks like we could need someone who’s done both criminology and historical litrerature in uni. You up for it?” 

Ellie looked at Sally, feeling a little bit anxious, the other woman just grinned at her encouragingly, so she looked back to the Inspector, smiled lightly and nodded in agreement.


End file.
